Cydia

Facebook launched Facebook 6.0 for iOS a couple of weeks back, and the update added support for a new messaging feature called Chat Heads. The Chat Heads hover around in the Facebook application and can be tapped on to access your open conversations with your friends.

With Message Box installed, if you open a Chat Head in the Facebook application, and then close the Facebook application, your Chat Head will remain on the home screen. You will still be able to access it, drag it around, open it, or close the conversation by dragging it to the bottom of the display just like you do when you're in the Facebook application:

In addition, if you open an application, your Chat Heads will remain available to you even when you have the non-Facebook application open:

Message Box respects your privacy and doesn’t make the Chat Heads available on the lock screen for obvious reasons. The tweak comes with a preferences pane where you can adjust the refresh interval for your messages. Notably, the higher the delay interval is, the less battery life is used – the developer notes that with higher delay intervals, it will take messages longer to become available to you. The default setting is just fine for basic users:

Message Box is not only free, but the developer has chosen to make the tweak open source. You can view the source code on GitHub via this link.

If you're enjoying Facebook's new Chat Heads feature, be sure to give Message Box a try!